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Police still searching for Kortne Stouffer

By CHRIS SHOLLY

Lebanon Daily News

Updated:
07/24/2013 04:56:29 PM EDT

Kortne Stouffer (Photo courtesy of Stouffer family)

The case of three women who had been missing about a decade and were rescued alive this week from a Cleveland home where they were being held is giving new hope to the search for a Lebanon County woman who vanished almost a year ago.

Lebanon County District Attorney David Arnold said the search goes on for Kortne Stouffer, who would now be 22 years old.

"We haven't lost hope," Arnold said Wednesday. "The case is still being worked."

Three women, Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, were found alive inside a Cleveland home on Monday. All three had been missing for 10 years, kidnapped and held hostage by three brothers until Berry escaped and called police.

"Hopefully, this case will cause people to keep their minds open and their eyes open" for Kortne Stouffer, Arnold said.

Scott Stouffer, Kortne's father, said he doesn't watch the news but he followed the coverage of the case earlier this week. Hearing the news of the three Cleveland women gave him hope, he said, but also created some anxiety because of what they had to go through.

It has been 10 months since Kortne Stouffer was last seen, and Lebanon County detectives and Palmyra police are continuing their search for her. On July 29, Kortne vanished from her 810 W. Main St. apartment in Palmyra sometime between 3:45 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. She was last seen officially when a Palmyra police officer responded to her apartment for a disturbance at 3:12 a.

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m. The officer returned for another call at 4:12 a.m., but nobody answered the door that time.

A man who spent that night at Stouffer's apartment told her father, Scott Stouffer, that he did not see or hear anything. When he awoke about 7:30 a.m. that day and did not see Kortne, he left, he told police. When Kortne did not show up for work the next day, her mother, Wendy, went to her apartment. She found the door unlocked, her wallet and cellphone inside and her car parked outside.

Contact info

Anyone with information is asked to send it to Kortneinfo@gmail.com or call Palmyra police at (717) 838-8189 or the Lebanon County District Attorney's office at (717) 228-4403.

But Kortne was not there.

Since then, numerous searches - on foot, with dogs and on horseback - have been conducted for Stouffer in areas near her home and other places around the Palmyra area. A reward for information that leads to the discovery of her whereabouts now stands at $42,000.

Arnold said detectives continue to investigate tips that come in from people.

"I don't have a conclusive theory on what happened to her," he said. "I think the most likely scenario that she was kidnapped."

Arnold said it is an active investigation. Detectives are studying a number of different avenues and haven't closed the door on things that they're already looked at, he said.

Jasinski added police are still taking tips.

"Tips have slowed down considerably," he said. "We continue to request the public's support by providing us with any information they may have regarding this case."

Stouffer encouraged others to be aware of their surroundings and keep an eye out for unusual things. "She could be in a house next door to them," he said.

The "cold reality" of the Cleveland case, he said, has even police rethinking everything.

If you have information about Kortne's whereabouts, email KortneInfo@gmail.com, or call police at 717-838-8188.